J-E-L-L-Oh!

On a long-ago business trip, I got to go to Bloomington (State Farm Insurance) and Peoria (Caterpillar), Illinois. We got to stay at Jumer’s Chateau which, while it didn’t quite have “theme rooms”, was right up there on the odd-ball business hotel list. Alas, Jumer’s is no longer called Jumer’s, which was part of its mega-charm, in my book. It’s now just the boring old “Chateau.” Anyway, the trip was memorable for a number of reasons. One was horrific: on the drive back to O’Hare, as we made our way through the soybean and corn fields, we kept moving in and out of radio reception while we tried to piece together what had happened that day in Oklahoma City. Had somebody really bombed a bunch of kids in a daycare center?

As for the business aspects of the trip:

Caterpillar went with someone else. We were just in there as due diligence fodder, and it didn’t help that our product demo didn’t work. (Wasn’t the first time; wasn’t the last.)

State Farm was an existing customer, and we got some add-on business from then.

But what I most remember about State Farm was their cafeteria. While it had the standard large-caf stations – entrees, soup, sandwiches, salads, desserts – it also had its very own Jell-o section. On offer were about a half-dozen different colored and/or flavored Jell-o desserts. Plain, with Cool Whip, with fruit, with Cool Whip and fruit. (Okay, okay. I don’t actually know if they were made with authentic Jell-o as opposed to, say, Royal – if Royal is even still in business – but Jell-o really is one of those Kleenex brands, isn’t it? Do I get to throw in the word eponymous here?)

I didn’t have any Jell-o myself, but one of the customers we ate with did, so I couldn’t exactly sit there making snarky comments about the variety and abundance of gelatinous desserts available.

And who was I to make fun of Jell-o to begin with?

It’s not as if I were any stranger to it.

My father had both a hollow leg and a sweet tooth, so my mother made a different dessert at least 4 or 5 times a week. Most of what we’re talking here was scratch baking: pies, cakes, cookies, squares, brownies. But when she was pressed for time, Liz would do a quickie pudding or Jell-o thing for us. You haven’t lived until you’ve had green Jell-o with canned fruit cocktail suspended in it.

While Jell-o was nowhere near as satisfying Daddy’s Favorite (raisin nut cake), Jack Horner Cake (spice cake made with prunes; amazingly tasty), or pan of Congo Bars, it was certainly better than a plain old apple. (This is so making me crave a piece of Daddy’s Favorite or Jack Horner. Apples I have all the time.)

But my mother kicked out all the stops on holidays, when she made a fancy Jell-o mold: “Waldorf Salad” made with apple Jell-o, apples, celery, and walnuts. Or orange Jell-o with pineapple and grated carrots. Or raspberry Jell-o with strawberries and walnuts slathered in sour cream. (Can that be right?)

Ah, yes, I make fun now, but they were all pretty darned tasty.

At any rate, I had ample reasons to be interested in a recent WSJ article claiming that “flavored gelatin is turning up in the work of avant-garde chefs and established design studios across the country.” (“Flavored gelatin”? Hooey. Why don’t you just come right out and say J-E-L-L-O, so we all know what you’re talking about.)

Colleen Whiteley, a furniture designer, used lemon-flavored gelatin to sculpt the head of Walt Disney at a recent Jell-O mold contest. (“Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,” preferably made out of butterscotch pudding.") Whiteley’s oeuvre garnered her:

… a creativity prize in the Brooklyn, N.Y., Jell-O Mold Competition. The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York provided prizes and her team of sculptors recently spent weeks perfecting their replica of Walt Disney's head.

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum! Jell-O sure has come a long and high faultin’ way from the grocer’s shelf.

Among other notable works: Obama’s head’s been “done”, as has Buckingham Palace, in honor of the recent royal nups.

The work of these artists and chefs is firming up gelatin's reputation in the culinary world. Companies like Blooming Gelatin Art in Los Angeles are selling gelatinas—gelatin cakes in flavors like mango and cappuccino with ornate flowers injected into the center. Michelle Quiles teaches classes on the technique, which she learned in Mexico City and involves injecting colored milk into the bottom of a gelatin cake.

Who knew?

I thought it was an aesthetic triumph to do a two-layer, two-tone Jell-o thing.

But Jello’s gone foodie:

The Way We See the World, a design studio in New York, has invented edible cups made of agar-agar with flavors like ginger mint and grapefruit chamomile. The cups are meant as a snack to go along with the cocktails they hold. The studio hopes to package and sell the cups next spring.

And directly boozy:

Michelle Palm blogs about creative Jell-o shots at Jelly Shot Test Kitchen when she’s not working as a financial consultant.

Jell-o, not surprising, is hoping to get in on the act:

Kraft Foods Inc., which sells about 165 million boxes of Jell-O instant gelatin dessert per year, plans to launch a marketing campaign this fall, known internally as "Mold Mania," introducing new molds, such as one in the shape of a brain for Halloween. "We definitely see a resurgence in molds," says Cindy Chen, director of marketing for the Jell-O brand.

I do believe that Archie McPhee beat Kraft to the brain-shaped mold. In fact, I used to have one, which I gave to a colleague to use at his kid’s haunted house party. But not before I made a brain mold for a family function.

Meanwhile, that 165 million boxes a year sounds really low to me. Come on, that’s not even one per capita. What’s the world coming to? So little Jell-o consumed. This is not the America that I grew up in. Thus, it must – by definition, no? – be un-American and just plain wrong.

While the avant-garde chef-erati are doing their bit. I’ll think about ways in which I can do mine. I must say that these nifty Santa caps might well be comin’ to town at my house this Christmas Eve….